Death of Professor Anthony O’Boyle - A Native of Keel, Achill
Saturday, May 10, 1913
Scranton Mourns the loss of one of its most foremost
citizens
A schoolmaster that gave it the spirit that made it great
Gave up the chance to become famed at sea to go to the help
of his native land
A tribute from one of his many schoolboys
Scranton, PA. - April 19 – Today at noon, all that was
mortal of the late Professor A.F. O’Boyle was laid to rest by the side of the
ashes of his wife who preceded him nine years ago in Cathedral Cemetery.
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| Anthony F. O'Boyle |
Sixty-three years ago there was born in the little town of
Keel, Achill, a boy, and as he grew, he evinced a desire for the sea, and as a
youth, his one great ambition was to be a navigator. That boy was A.F. O’Boyle,
whose funeral so many of us attended this morning. The boy was sent to the
Dublin University where he pursued his study in navigation and was graduated
for that position. But while in Dublin and, indeed, as he advanced in life, the
young man came to the conclusion that it was nobler to serve the people than
the Government that enslaved them. As Emmet and other Irishman of heroic blood
drifted, so did young O’Boyle.
The man, qualified to navigate the high seas for England,
became a Fenian, and he went back to the town of Achill to teach and spread the
cause of the Irish patriots. In this town, young O’Boyle taught school and
spread Fenianism. In 1867 he came to this country with his gospel and found a
position as a public school teacher in Minooka.
The young Irish school teacher was not long in this country
until he made his influence felt and became a factor. He was of fine physique,
of warm, red blood with an intellect that was quick and sharp, and tongue well
attuned to the King’s English. Nature fortified the young man in many ways. He
could stand among men and express himself. There was elegance in his attire, in
his speech, and in his manner. For thirteen or fourteen years before he came,
Minooka was a small mining town with little opportunity for educating the
young. The teacher that now and then came to the school was just an ordinary
sort of fellow with nothing strong or potent in his character. Professor
O’Boyle was a different kind of teacher—something new to the town. He had a
vitality that made itself manifest. He possessed a vigor that was forceful. He
had a spirit—now called ginger. He was a dynamo of mental, physical and of
patriotic energy. He had a manliness that stood out boldly and cowered before
no self-constituted authority.
Professor O’Boyle was a real school master with a positive
and emphatic emphasis on the noun. He was a master spirit. He made school laws
and enforced them. He built and developed the character of his pupils and allowed
no such word as “fail” in the lexicon of Minooka.
In 1866, Minooka was not much of a place. It was not known
outside its immediate environments. It had nothing to distinguish it—nothing
that interested other communities. Its little white schoolhouse, on the brow of
the hill, stood for little. The only government the town had was that exercised
by the hard working parents. The only world the boys saw was the coal mines.
The only world the girls knew was between the home, the school, and the grocery
store. The only education in the school was merely initiative. The big alphabet
cardboard hung on the walls, and as a rule, they were able to carry a dinner
pail to the breaker and then sit and pick the slate away from the coal.
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| Sister of Professor O'Boyle |
Professor A.F. Boyle was Minooka’s Homer. He wrote its Iliad
and its Odyssey. He became the father of a new spirit in the little town that
in later years turned out more lawyers, clergymen, editors, and seamen than any
town of its size in America. In 1866, as I said, Minooka was unknown. Before
1867 it was destined to become known as the Athens of northeastern
Pennsylvania. The new spirit spread among the people and Professor O’Boyle
became one of the best known people of the valley. He had breathed freedom into
the little town. He brought with him the spirit that had distinguished Emmet,
and he let it loose and soon the boys of the town lifted their heads and ran
away from the old cardboard, and were running through history and literature
and some of the arts.
Minooka did more than pick up. It bursted up. The young
Irish school master—not a voter, figuratively speaking, became the mayor, the
high constable, the council and the master of the town. He told the boys where
to get on and where to get off. If the boy did work in the mine or in the
breaker, that made no difference to the schoolmaster. The boy had to go to
night school. If the boy failed to attend, the professor was at his home next
day and explained to the parents their duty and urged them to so equip their
sons that they would get out of the mines.
Prof. A.F. O’Boyle was the first compulsory education
law—the first truant officer—the original free text bill. If the parents of the
boy or girl could not afford to buy books, Professor O’Boyle bought them and
the boy or girl were [sic] educated.
What a night school!
The little building was filled every night. Although the
boys of the village were vigorous, and somewhat uncouth, they attempted no
rough house. If they did, they got the switch. In one night Prof. O’Boyle could
subdue the most cantankerous boys in the village. He kept the pupils under
control and subject to a rigid form of government. The spelling classes were
great. There were prizes once a month. The enthusiasm went into the homes of
the boys. Fathers and mothers were enthused and, on competitive nights, the
school would be filled and bets made on the boys. The winner was the hero of
the town until the next spelling match. In a few years there were no better
spellers in Pennsylvania than the boys of the Minooka mines. In a few years,
the boys were leaving the mines and going to college, to begin careers, that
afterwards won them distinction in many walks of life.
While all this was going on in Minooka, there was something
other than education in the mind of the young school master. There was a little
girl over in Ireland who grew every day in his heart. Her name was Roseanna
Stevens, of Westport, a bright, talented, cultured, girl. Once a week, one of
the scholars would be sent to the Taylor post office, and when he returned with
a letter on which the postmark “Westport,” he was sure of a dime. It soon
became whispered among the boys of the school that the Professor had a
sweetheart in Ireland. When night school was dismissed, the school master,
while at his desk in the school room and with the light of a kerosene lamp,
wrote letters to Ireland, intended for only one subscriber—the little girl
whose school master he had been in Ireland.
In 1872, with the money he had saved, Professor O’Boyle went
back to his choice, and Minooka lost its famed teacher, for on the return of
Mr. and Mrs. O’Boyle, North Scranton bid for the bridegroom and offered him the
principalship of one of their best schools, a position which he accepted. For
twenty-two years Professor O’Boyle taught there.
In 1887, he was elected County Commissioner, and after
leaving the office, he became a commercial traveler with Pennsylvania as his
territory. Seven years ago he was elected jury commissioner. No man in the
State was more active in Irish affairs, no man no more true and faithful to the
land of his birth. In 1874, on a second visit to Ireland, he wrote letters to
the Scranton papers that lifted him to a high place in journalism but he wanted
the great outside for his labour. Occasionally, he wrote for the Irish papers
of the country. He was active as a Land Leaguer, and knew all the prominent men
in the movement. He was a member of the A.O.H. and the John Mitchell Club. He
was prominent in the work of the Irish-American society. Although of a militant
nature, Professor O’Boyle was a man of the sweetest piety and the most
ennobling devotions. His life was clean. No foul word ever escaped his lips.
While a valiant among the ladies, only one had his heart, and when she died
nine years ago, the light of the world seemed to go out of the eyes of the
former school master. After leaving the wife of his bosom in the cemetery,
Professor O’Boyle was never again the same. A bit of melancholy crept into his
life, but he did not let his friends see it. Only those close to him observed
it. After the family had gone to bed, this man of vigor—the best known man in
this end of the State—the militant, high strung, temperamental Irish scholar,
would kneel for hours, in quiet prayer, before the photograph of his wife. His
heart was in his children. He was charitable to a fault. He would give to the
poor his last cent.
A few years ago, I wrote of his acts of charity. The
incident occurred on a Saturday night when he was at home alone. A neighbor
called—a man who had spent his money on rum—and said there was nothing in the
house for his wife and children.
“You are a fine man to spend all your money on booze,” said
the Professor. “You will not suffer, but your wife and children will. Sober up
and be a man.”
The Professor got a basket, went to the refrigerator, filled
the basket, and gave it to the drunkard.
Sunday morning when the cook arose, she alarmed the house by
crying out someone had robbed the refrigerator.
“No one robbed it,” said the Professor. “I gave what was in
it to the family.”
“But,” protested the daughter, “we have nothing for
breakfast, dinner, or supper.”
“I can’t help that,” exclaimed the Professor. “Why didn’t
you get those things in time?”
“But you gave away what we had.”
“How could I help it!” exclaimed the father. “Didn’t the man
say that his wife and children were starving! Anyway, it is said to be healthy
go to church fasting.”
Charitable as he was, there was iron in his blood, and he
knew how to remember and how to resent. He was an open foe to all who appeared
to him as wrong. He was fruitful of resources, and those who tested his mettle
had no reason to go away doubtful. He was a man of force. He was patient in
research, persistent in industry, scrupulously desiring and bravely determined
to do what his deliberate judgment dictated what was right. When a principle
was involved, he was unyielding, yet never uncourteous, and always the polished
gentleman. He was witty and there was always a quiet touch of humor in his
composition. A short while ago, while filling the jury wheel with his
co-officer, Benny Griffith, the later said the filling should be done in a
certain way.
“Who said so?” asked O’Boyle.
“Why, the Judge,” replied Mr. Griffith.
“What Judge?” asked Mr. O’Boyle.
“Judge Edwards,” replied Mr. Griffith.
“Sure,” said Mr. O’Boyle, “I ought to know better than to
ask you what Judge. But you go back and tell Judge Edwards that I left Ireland
on account of coercion and no court is going to coerce me in this country.”
And Mr. O’Boyle filled the wheel his way. In selecting jurors
for the wheel, he did it mathematically. He gave each town its quota on the
most recent election returns. What he said of the Judge was not uttered in a
depracting [sic] way, but as man to man—that he knew as much as the judge did
about the job. In mould he was heroic and imperial. He would not stand for
intimidation. He had confidence in himself and confidence in what he did. He
could look any man in the face. Why his mind was subtle [and] misty,
metaphysical disquisition had little part in his rugged manly life. He had a
pride. He would not express a friendship he did not feel nor would he recant a
conviction he held. He was like the iron-ribbed ship, deep in whose hold
pulsate the giant engines that drive her through a gale and into the port she
seeks. His heart and his charities were not confined to any narrow circle. His
charity went out in deep, strong currents.
Professor A.F. O’Boyle was a true, soulful, earnest man with
warm red blood in his heart and a deep, unyielding mind doing his full duty to
his God and to his fellow man. You always found him battling for the underdog.
He did not fear death. I rather fancy that he welcomed it
for his heart had yearned for nine years for the woman into whose keeping he
had given his life. As I looked for the last time on his cold face, there came
to mind the lines:
“The spoiler had set the seal of silence
But there beamed a smile
So fixed, so holy, from the manly brow
Death gazed and left it there
He dared not steal the signet ring of heaven.”*
As I looked for the last time on that countenance from which
for the first time, since the early days of my boyhood, no kindly glance of
recognition or word of welcome came, I felt as something had also been silenced
in my life. How soft that face looked upon me and how anxious it often was to
see me develop in the school room. To me it was never a face that showed
unkindness. At times when I struggled to master some subject, it did look with
pity upon me, but out of pity, came the ray of hope that led me on. Thousands
of boys and girls saw that face in the schoolroom and by seeing it was made
better and started on careers that brought them something.
But the journey of my school master is ended. His weary feet
and tired brain are at rest. Another friend has gone on that journey that
sooner or later we must take—blessed with the love of relatives and friends. He
has passed through the portals of the unknown and helplessly we stand at the
dark gateway and vainly we ask the dead to tell us the secrets of the grave.
My beloved school master. I will not say goodbye for in some
brighter clime, I hope to bid you good morning.
If the late A.F. O’Boyle had lived, it is likely that he
would be appointed to a position in Ireland representing his Government. This
was the cherished home of his friends. Unknown to him, these were to ask
President Wilson for the appointment. But death had no doubt of a higher post
of honor for our noble friend and townsman.
Professor O’Boyle’s mother survives her brilliant son, and
with his step-father, Pat Patten, resides in Achill Island where also reside
two sisters: Mrs. Anna White and Mrs. Thomas White, also his step-brother,
Cornelius Patten, of Westport, and Thom.(?) Patten, of Salt Lake. His surviving
children are Robert Emmet, William F. Charles, Lucy A. Frances, Kathleen Anna,
and Mrs. Mary O’Malley, and Sister Mary Roseanna of St. Basil Convent, Dushore.
Funeral of Professor O’Boyle:
Scranton, Pa. – April 19
More than two miles of carriages today followed the remains
of Professor A.F. O’Boyle to the Cathedral Cemetery where the casket containing
the body was placed in a steel casket and lowered into the grave. The funeral
was the largest the town has ever had and was under the direction of undertaker
Regan. A High Requiem Mass was celebrated in the hall of St. Rose’s Church. The
building was filled to the doors. Rev. Father Hopkins was the celebrant of the
Mass, with Rev. Fathers Kane and Lynott assistants. The boys’ choir sang the
Mass. Dr. Lynott sang “O Salutaries” and “Beautiful Land on High.”
Honorary pallbears were D.? Campbell, Judge Sando, A.J.
Casey, Ben Griffiths, P.F. Connors, John O’Boyle, and Hon. J.P. Quinnan, Hon.
M.E. McDermott(?), Hon. E.I. Blewitt, P.H. Ryan, James Grier, M.A. McGinley,
and P.A. Barrett(?).
Just as the funeral was leaving the house this morning, a
letter carrier brought a letter with an Irish date mark. It was addressed to
Professor O’Boyle and was from his step-father announcing the death of the
professor’s mother in Keel, Achill, on the 7th of April. The mother
was 93(?) years of age. The day she died, the Professor was taken ill.
*From Death of an Infant by Linda Huntley Sigourney
(1791-1865)
Contributed by Jim O'Callaghan, Dublin, Ireland
Jim's wife is related to A.F. O'Boyle
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